“James Bond.” He screws up his nose as he thinks. There’s a bit more color in his cheeks now, and he has let go of my jeans pocket. “Die or Go Live, I think? Or something.”

“Live and Let Die?” He nods. I have a hazy memory of Jane Seymour and some kind of voodoo in that one. I’ve never particularly thought about the age certificate for Live and Let Die, or for any Bond film for that matter, but I’m sure it must be at least a 12. Which Callum is most definitely not. “Erm, did your mum say you could watch it?”

“Nah, it was Uncle Jamie.”

“Right,” I say faintly. “Well, I can assure you I’ve never seen any sign of Carrie being involved in black magic.” His jaw remains mutinously set. “Look, Carrie would hardly be fine with you playing in her bedroom if she had black magic paraphernalia to hide, would she?”

“Para . . . ?”

“Paraphernalia. It means stuff, equipment.”

He considers this carefully for a moment, then his face clears and he nods. “They could have slipped through,” he mutters, half to himself.

I pretend I didn’t hear that. “Okay then. I’ll just grab these and we can wrap them up and I’ll take them to the police station.” But then I wonder if I ought to be touching the bones at all—if they are human, would I be tampering with evidence? “Callum, can you grab me some toilet paper from the bathroom there? I’ll wrap them in that.”

He’s off like a shot, then back only seconds later with an entire roll of toilet paper. I shift the bedside table so that I can access the gap more easily. Then I tear off a healthy length of loo roll, fold it and lay it down on the bedside table, waiting to take delivery. I take another length of toilet paper in my right hand, and bend into the gap to pick up the bones.

The paper makes me clumsy; I can only grab a couple of bones at a time. They are simultaneously lighter yet more solid than I had expected. When I’m finished, all six lie among loo paper on the bedside table. It could be a bird’s nest, I find myself thinking. A nest of bones. Too small, though, for the raven that lies outside with a yellow Post-it note pinned to its breast. A rising wave of panic is threatening to pick me up. Dear God, what was I thinking, allowing Callum to come here? What was Ben thinking, letting him come? How could we expose a seven-year-old boy to this house and the things that go on here? I’m going to be dashed on the rocks of the sheer awful carelessness of it. How could I have? How could Ben? How could Fiona—who seems to know more about the Manse than anyone—have allowed it?